Great coaches worst big game performance

[rhickok1109]

Tom Landry Super Bowl V. He called all the plays and his decision to put the ball in the air late in the game after a holding penalty that set up a long down and distance situation was atypical of him. Mike Curtis intercepted a pass off of a deflection to set up Jim O'Brien's GW field goal. He received a lot of criticism for not running the ball and playing for overtime, as his Doomsday Defense had dominated the Colts for most of the game.

I thought Landry did a really bad job of coaching in the famous 1981 NFC Championship game (The Catch, of course) by going into a prevent defense with nearly 5 minutes to play. The 49ers moved 89 yards with relative on short passes and a few runs.

[Jay Z]

Parcells admitted he did a poor job in the game against the Rams but how do we know that the HC did a poor job in the games you listed? They're all routs or upsets but who is to blame for those results? For example; Fouts threw five picks against the Oilers. How much blame does Coryell deserve?

Curious to know why you mentioned Lombardi in the playoff win over the Colts. The Packers dominated most of the game but couldn't finish their drives. Zeke Bratkowski played essentially the whole game in place of Bart Starr and he played fairly well going 22-39 for 248 IIRC. Tom Matte didn't have a productive game at QB for the Colts as their only TD came on a Don Shinnick fumble return on the play that Bart was injured. I think Lombardi's poorest big game was the loss to the Eagles in the 1960 championship game.

Parcells mentioning the 89 playoff loss to the Rams as his poorest job is interesting because in 1988 with both teams having virtually the same personnel, the Rams routed the Giants in NY/NJ...28-3 in the 1st half with the Giants scoring a late garbage TD to make the final 45-31. Jim Everett threw 5 TDs. In 1989, the Giants lost twice to the Eagles in the regular season, and the Rams had defeated Philly 21-7 in the WC round. So I don't really view the Rams win over NY as an 'upset'.

As for Lombardi, I thought it was gutsy of him to let Bratkowski throw 40 passes. Not sure if many other coaches would have done that, even with Baltimore stonewalling the Packers running game. Your QB gets knocked out early in a playoff game on a fumble return TD that puts you in a 7-0 hole, and you go on to win the game....how is that a bad coaching performance?

Pack had almost the same yardage in the playoff game as they did two weeks earlier when they scored 42 against the Colts. Problem was it took 29 more plays to get the same number of yards.

Packers went for it on the goal line late in the 1st half down 10-0. You can say the first points are hardest to get, take a FG there. You can guess that the Colts are probably not going to score many more points if any, start getting on the board.

You can make the same argument for 1960. Get the points, go for it later. In 1960 I will say that they really didn't get close to a TD other than the one they got. You would not figure 19 points with 4 FG would be a winning hand, but it may have worked here.

[Bryan]

Pack had almost the same yardage in the playoff game as they did two weeks earlier when they scored 42 against the Colts. Problem was it took 29 more plays to get the same number of yards.

Packers went for it on the goal line late in the 1st half down 10-0. You can say the first points are hardest to get, take a FG there. You can guess that the Colts are probably not going to score many more points if any, start getting on the board.

Good point.

[Gary Najman]

Tom Landry Super Bowl V. He called all the plays and his decision to put the ball in the air late in the game after a holding penalty that set up a long down and distance situation was atypical of him. Mike Curtis intercepted a pass off of a deflection to set up Jim O'Brien's GW field goal. He received a lot of criticism for not running the ball and playing for overtime, as his Doomsday Defense had dominated the Colts for most of the game.

I thought Landry did a really bad job of coaching in the famous 1981 NFC Championship game (The Catch, of course) by going into a prevent defense with nearly 5 minutes to play. The 49ers moved 89 yards with relative on short passes and a few runs.

I remember very well that 9-year veteran RB Lenvil Elliott (in his last game, he didn't play in Super Bowl XVI) ran a lot in that drive prior to The Catch, and DAllas couldn't stop him.

[74_75_78_79_]

Papa Bear...losing NFLCGs in both '34 and '42, each as unbeatens going in.

I'd remove these two. Beattie Feathers had been the Bears star all season, but didn't play in the game due to injury. The weather conditions were also tough for the Sneakers Game and you had a Hall of Famer in Ken Strong on the other side, just happen to have a HOFer type game, not sure you can coach against that.

I don't think '42 can be put on Halas, because he isn't listed as the coach, but I don't think I'd put it on the other coaches either. Looks like a relatively low scoring game against a one-loss Redskins team with Sammy Baugh.

You’re very right. Don’t know what I was thinking. Yes, ‘sneakers’, and Halas was off to the War by the time the latter championship game took place. Neither example was good at all. Not sure what Papa Bear’s worst big-game would be. I thought of the ’56 title game but less than a second later, I remembered that Halas wasn’t the coach.

As for another coach who’s unbeaten team went down for all the marbles, I don’t think SBXLII should be used as the example for Belichick either. Yes, it’s widely viewed as an upset of SBIII-like proportions, but Pats did simmer down a bit going into the playoffs - beating Jags and then injured-Rivers/LT-less Chargers each in not-so-dominating fashion. G-men as a whole matched up quite well against them. They showed it in that finale game as well. Pats still having yet to lose that very first game of the season (hence get it out of the way then regain focus/move forward again as case with ’85 Bears amongst others) also didn’t help by the time the SB arrived (bubble ready to burst). Goes to show just how very hard it is to go undefeated, especially in the now 16-game era!

I also won’t hold the other Pats/NYG SB against Belichick either for their D was quite a liability (31st in yards-allowed!!). A bit paper-tiger-ish they seem in hindsight only they at least make it to the SB. Despite the 9-7 regular season finish, I knew the G-men would prevail going into that SB; especially considering how great they suddenly became once playoffs started. And, again, Coughlin, Eli, and Co simply matched up well against them as case four years prior; they beat them regular season at Foxboro. Had Pats won that very SB, I would have actually viewed that as an upset.

I did give his convincing 1st-round home-loss to Ravens in ’09 some brief thought but the Pats lost quite a bit of personnel that off-season; and losing to Harbaugh’s Ravens (another coach/team that’s been one to match-up well vs Pats) nothing to be ashamed of. My unanimous vote goes to allowing Colts to come back in 2nd-half ’06 AFCCG.